Social dislocation of street children engaged in commercial sex work

In this work semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews were conducted with female street children aged 15 to 18, who were engaged in commercial sex work. These children were conveniently selected to explore the social dislocation of children engaged in commercial sex work. In addition, focus group discussions and key informant individual interviews were conducted. This work found that female children engaged in commercial sex work experienced a high degree of social dislocation and that the children who participated in this study tended to create their own communities and isolated themselves from the broader community in which they lived. This study further found that different support programmes had been introduced to alleviate the problems experienced by these children and that a number of organisations delivered support services to address their needs.